The contents and effectiveness of a foreign policy--or of
any public policy for that matter--can be explained in terms
of various types of actors and various forms of behavior. Foreign service officers who assess conditions abroad and initiate
policy alternatives to cope with them, high government officials who advise one course of action rather than another,
nongovernmental leadership groups who veto or support
some of the alternatives, citizens comprising the mass public
who limit the range of acceptable alternatives, top officers of
the executive branch who finally decide which alternative to
adopt, members of the legislative branch who modify the
chosen alternative, officials in the field who implement the
alternative which ultimately emerges from the policy-making
process--all of these actors and groups contribute to the
character and success of American foreign policy and each can
serve as the focus of an explanatory analysis.

To be sure, not all of these actors are equally influential.
There is a vast discrepancy between the influence of the
President who makes the final decision and that of the
ordinary citizen who contributes vague feelings to a public
mood that sets outer limits on the policy commitments which
can be undertaken. Yet the nature of the policy is a function
of the activities--or lack of activities--of each of these
actors. Variations in the style or quality of the role played
by any of them produce corresponding alterations in the
contents and adequacy of the policy. Changing presidential
attitudes produce much greater policy alterations than do
changing moods on the part of the citizenry, but shifting
public moods do have consequences for the formulation and
conduct of foreign policy.

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